There exist state-of-the-art mechanical watches including display devices, particularly time display devices, which possess original features distinguishing them from conventional analogue displays, which usually include an hour hand coaxial with a minute hand at the centre of the movement.
By way of example, Swiss Patent Application No 01949/07 (unpublished) discloses a timepiece display device comprising several elongated prisms. Each prism is capable of being actuated to pivot in rotation about its longitudinal axis, enabling one of the lateral faces thereof to be oriented in a display plane, so that, viewed together, all of the lateral faces displayed provide information relating to the legal time. Close to its periphery, the display device includes several display modules; each display module including several elongated prisms arranged side-by-side lengthwise so as to form a display surface. The visual appearance of each lateral face of each prism of each module is devised to enable the legal time information to be recreated on the display surface of one of the display modules when the prisms of that module are oriented side-by-side in the display plane. The display device further includes a rotating member arranged coaxially at the centre of the movement, said rotating member being capable of revealing, by rotating about its axis, one of the display modules corresponding to the legal time.
It is an object of the present invention to propose another original display device for indicating, in particular, the hours.